Even without Tory revival, Blair can lose out

[cal04]

Tony Blair could be denied an overall majority at the next general election by a Liberal Democrat advance that enables the Tories to capture more than 70 Labour-held marginal seats without winning a greater share of the national vote. Tony Blair could be denied an overall majority at the next general election by a Liberal Democrat advance that enables the Tories to capture more than 70 Labour-held marginal seats without winning a greater share of the national vote.

A study for The Independent suggests that Michael Howard could achieve a hung parliament without improving the Tories' poor performance in 2001 if people disenchanted with Mr Blair and opponents of the Iraq war vote tactically against Labour in the election expected next May.

The study by John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, provides a warning to Labour that it cannot take the next election for granted even though recent opinion polls point to a 100-strong majority for Mr Blair. Labour strategists are worried that a "Lib Dem effect" could cost the party scores of seats, especially if problems in Iraq remain at election time.

Officials in the three main parties believe that the tactical voting against the Tories that helped Labour to win in 1997 and 2001 will disappear next year.The Liberal Democrats would not reap huge rewards because of Britain's electoral system. Instead, the Tories would overtake Labour in Labour-held marginals, while Mr Kennedy's party gained 12 seats from Labour and 13 seats from the Tories, including those held by the shadow ministers David Davis, Oliver Letwin, Theresa May and Tim Collins.

http://www.independent.co.uk/580563.html

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. There is a politically marked man.

But Carlyle will set him free.

[DulceDecorum]

2. Blair & Diebold --

a winning combination.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Voting machines aren't used in the UK

there have been one or two experiments with voting on the Internet or by text message, but they don't appear to be going anywhere. Voting by an all postal ballot has been used in some regional elections, but that has had problems too (both plain incompentency, and some allegations of fraud); I don't think it would be used for a national eceltion.

Getting back to the article: there's rather a lot of 'if's in it. And note that the end result is still Labout having more than 100 seats more than the Tories, despite getting a lower percentage of the vote. If it did all happen, Blair would still be Prime Minister; he'd have to tread very carefully, to avoid the Tories, Lib Dems and other parties (plus some of his true left wing backbenchers) ganging up on him. But it's not too common to get an issue on which all of those groups can agree. Off hand, university fees were the only issue that I think a change in balance of the Commons like this would have defeated him on.